


instruction manual not included

by JenTheSweetie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, post-s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:36:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11056260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: The next day, they very distinctly did not mention it.  Sherlock was almost entirely certain that all he felt about that was relief.For a genius, Sherlock sure has trouble figuring out his best friend.





	instruction manual not included

**Author's Note:**

> This piece would never happened without Snapjack, who coached me through finishing it and then suggested edits that made it about a million times better than before, all while starting a new job and finding a new apartment. I'm so lucky to know her!
> 
> Thanks, as always, to everyone for taking the time to read :)

“What do you think I should call this one, then?” John said.  “The Adventure of the Missing Boots?” 

“Absolutely not,” Sherlock said.  “The boots weren’t missing at all, they were the only thing left behind!”  


“Well, yeah, but that means _someone’s_  missing them, doesn’t it?” John said, shutting the door to 221 behind them.

“Perhaps we should avoid titling a blog post about a case that’s too dull to even bother solving,” Sherlock said.

“Too dull?” John said.  “Those boots were right on top of a - ”

Sherlock threw out a hand to quiet him.  He paused on the third step, glanced around, and sniffed.  

“Mycroft,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“You can _smell_  him now?” John muttered.

Sherlock didn’t dignify that with a response; when he opened the door to the sitting room, Mycroft was, indeed, sitting on the sofa, his umbrella across his lap and his toe mid-tap of impatience.

“No,” Sherlock said.

Mycroft sighed.  “At least allow me to _ask_.  Hello, John,” he added.

“Mycroft,” John said.  “Tea?”

“He’s not staying,” Sherlock said.

“Tea would be lovely,” Mycroft said.  “This request is coming from the very top.”

“I don’t care if it’s coming from the bloody queen,” Sherlock said.  

John popped his head out from the kitchen.  “What’s this about the monarchy?”

“My brother is here to attempt to convince me to take a case.”

“A case that is _extremely_  high priority.”

“If it’s so high priority, why don’t you send your own people?” 

“Because half of them are untrustworthy, and the other half are too stupid,” Mycroft said wearily.

“He’s calling you clever,” John said.  “Must be important.”

“Let me guess,” Sherlock said, narrowing his eyes at Mycroft.  “I’ll be tracking down someone _your_  team lost.”

Mycroft glared at him.  “It should take you a month.  Two at the outside.”

“I’m afraid I’m all booked up,” Sherlock said, leaning back in his chair and taking out his phone.  

“Ah, yes,” Mycroft said.  “Rosie has ballet class on Thursdays.  You couldn’t possibly miss it.”

“Oh, shut up, Mycroft,” John said, before Sherlock could even open his mouth.  “Just because you have nothing in your life besides work doesn’t mean he has to be the same.”

Mycroft glanced at John, then looked back at Sherlock.  “You do realize,” he said, “that there are people who believe you still owe your country a debt.”

“Hang on,” John said.  “You don’t mean - ”

“Of course he does,” Sherlock dismissed.  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to just send me to prison for murder?  No, because you _enjoy_  dangling Magnussen over my head every time you want something from me.”

“I don’t,” Mycroft said flatly.  “But desperate times - ”  

“Right, I’m rescinding my offer of tea.”  John crossed his arms.  “Get out.”

“John,” Mycroft began.

“No, you don’t get to come into our house and sit on our sofa and demand he give you two months of his life that he doesn’t want to give,” John said.  “You don’t own him, all right?  Anyway, if it weren’t for me, he would have never - ” he bit off the end of his sentence.

“Indeed, he wouldn’t have,” Mycroft said, never taking his eyes off Sherlock.  “If that’s your final answer?”

Sherlock stared back at him.  

Mycroft sighed.  “Very well,” he said.  “Perhaps next time.”

“Don’t count on it,” Sherlock said, looking back down at his phone.

John waited until the door shut quietly behind him.  “Arsehole.”

“Nothing new there.”

“I just - how _dare_  he come in here and - does he do it often, then?”

“What?”

“Threaten you,” John said.

“Not really,” Sherlock said.  “Only when it’s important.”

“And always because of - ”

“Yes,” Sherlock said.

“Right,” John said.  He took a deep breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth.  “Right, then.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Sherlock said.  “Anyway, I’d do it again.”

“It doesn’t - I’m sorry, what?” John said.  “You’d do - you’d shoot that bastard in the head again?”

“Of course,” Sherlock said.  “You’d shoot the cabbie, wouldn’t you?”

John stared at him.  “That’s different.”

“It’s really not,” Sherlock said.

“Right,” John said.  He took a step toward Sherlock, then another.  “I - ”

And then, before Sherlock could do anything about it, John leaned forward, grabbed the front of his suit jacket, and kissed him.

It took Sherlock a moment to catch up.  John’s lips were softer than Sherlock had expected - _not_  that he’d _ever_  put any thought into expecting them to be _anything_  - and his eyes were shut tight; Sherlock was torn between watching him and letting his own eyelids fall - 

And then John’s eyes were open, and with a sharp intake of breath he yanked himself away.

Sherlock stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” John said, looking away. 

“It’s quite all right,” Sherlock, forgetting how to blink.

“Right,” John said.  “I’ll just - got to pick up Rosie, I’ll - ”

And he turned on his heel and left the sitting room without a word, his footfalls heavy on the stairs.

Sherlock listened for the door to close, stared at the place he’d just been, and thought about how extraordinary it was that after so many years, John Watson could still be so singularly perplexing.

-

The next day, they very distinctly did not mention it.  Sherlock was almost entirely certain that all he felt about that was relief.

-

The case _was_ , in the end, a bit dull: a baked man in an empty shipping container, an Irish crime syndicate run by a boss with a phone sex habit, and an unsuccessful and frankly embarrassing attempt to kidnap Sherlock Holmes, disrupted almost immediately by Dr. Watson and a not insignificant percentage of the Metropolitan Police Service.  

It wasn’t until they were climbing the stairs to 221B, John lifting a sleeping Rosie from Mrs. Hudson’s sofa on the way, that Sherlock realized he’d been favoring his left side.  It didn’t hurt overly much, but John had thrown a fit the last time he’d broken a bone and not said anything, so he diverted to the bathroom while John carried Rosie upstairs to her bed, murmuring in her ear to keep her from waking fully.  

Sherlock unbuttoned his shirt and let it drop to the floor, wincing just a bit.  Yes, that was quite the bruise blossoming on his chest, but nothing more; it would feel better in the morning.  He was just pressing around the edges, mildly interested in the feel of the coagulated blood under his fingertips, when John stuck his head in.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” John said.  

“It’s not,” Sherlock said.  

“I ought to take a look, anyway - was it a fist?”

“A knee, actually,” Sherlock said as John approached, his brow slightly furrowed.  

He cupped the edge of Sherlock’s ribs gently.  “Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Not really,” Sherlock said.

“That’s good,” John murmured.  “No harm done, then.”

“Like I said,” Sherlock said.  John continued to study the bruise, his fingers still splayed across Sherlock’s side.  “Is there anything else, or - ”

He cut himself off as John’s other hand came to rest on Sherlock’s side.  Sherlock went very still.

“John,” he said quietly.

“Yes?” John said, and then Sherlock pressed his lips to John’s.

Sherlock half expected John to push him away, but John, as was becoming something of a habit, surprised him: he kissed back harder this time, pulling Sherlock to him by the hips.  John’s body seemed to fit to his, and Sherlock shoved John against the sink in an effort to get even closer.  He could feel John swelling against his leg, and all Sherlock could think was that even if he’d wanted to stop he didn’t know _how_.

Tentatively, he slid a hand down John’s side, along his waist, and gripped him through his trousers.  John moaned against his lips and Sherlock swallowed his moans greedily, stroking faster to elicit more, adjusting the pressure and speed as quickly as John could react, and Sherlock had always figured there was some sort of sexual instruction manual hardwired into human DNA that he’d lacked but he’d been wrong, it had been there all along, just waiting for John’s gasps to reveal the directions.  

“Sherlock,” John said, his voice ragged, “God, I’m going to - ”

John gasped, and his body shook, and Sherlock kissed him through it, waiting until the tremors stopped.

And then John’s lips got lazy, and his head dropped against Sherlock’s chest.  Sherlock ran a hand up his back, slid his fingers into the hair at the base of John’s skull, trying to figure out if there was something he should say, something he should do - 

\- and then John slid out from between Sherlock’s body and the bathroom sink, the empty space that used to hold him suddenly cold, and disappeared into the hallway without looking back.

Sherlock shucked the rest of his clothing, left it balled up in a pile on the lino and crawled into his bed.  He was hard and overheated and something that felt like happy or perhaps miserable, and he breathed deeply and stared into the heavy darkness until, mercifully, he fell asleep.

-

The toast was burnt at breakfast. 

“Mrs. Hudson said you had a case,” Rosie said, munching on the least-blackened piece.  

“We did,” Sherlock said while John flipped through the paper.

“Did you get the bad guy?” Rosie asked.

Sherlock glanced at John, who didn’t look up.  “Yes.  Don’t we always?”

“Of course,” Rosie said, her belief unwavering as ever.  “When can I start coming along?”

“When you’re old enough to tie your own shoelaces, perhaps,” John said.

“But I’m four!” Rosie said.

“A very interesting point,” Sherlock said.  “But I wasn’t a detective until I was a bit older than four.”

“Well, _I_  could do it at four,” Rosie said.

“I have no doubt about that,” Sherlock said.

“But rules are rules, and Detective Inspector Lestrade says you can’t start consulting until you’re 30 at least,” John said quickly, gathering up their dishes.  “Are you nearly finished eating?  You need to leave soon if you don’t want to be late to school.”

“I know,” Rosie said, sliding her finger across her plate to capture a bit of marmalade that had tumbled from its vehicle.  “How about when I’m five?”

“We can talk about that after your birthday,” John said, before Sherlock could open his mouth.  “Off to clean your teeth, now.”

“All right,” Rosie said, apparently satisfied with the arrangement, and scrambled off to the loo.

“You shouldn’t encourage her,” John said under his breath, leaning over Sherlock to collect Rosie’s plate.  

“Why not?  I solved my first murder at 10,” Sherlock said.

“Yes, and we all know how that worked out,” John said.  “Perhaps she’ll want to be a journalist, or a businesswoman, or a - ”

“Doctor?” Sherlock drawled.  

“Maybe,” John said, grinning.  “At this point I think I’d prefer she keep an open mind, all right?”

“All right,” Sherlock said.  As John passed by, one of Sherlock’s hands reached out to touch the other man’s waist, seemingly of its own accord.  But that was all right; surely that was acceptable, now that - 

John flinched.

 _Oh_ , Sherlock thought.

“My apologies,” he said, withdrawing his hand.

“No need,” John said.  “It’s just - ”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said, taking a step back and wondering what exactly he’d done wrong.  

“Sherlock - ”

“Time for school, isn’t it?” Sherlock said loudly, turning back as Rosie darted back into the kitchen.  “You didn’t clean your teeth, Rosie.”

“Yes I did!” Rosie said.

“No, you didn’t.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Because you’ve got marmalade on your cheek, and you would have wiped it off if you’d looked in the mirror whilst you brushed,” Sherlock said.  “Open and shut case.”

“Maybe I thought it looked nice,” Rosie said, giggling.

“Well, that would be very silly, wouldn’t it,” Sherlock said.

“Go on, Rosie, we’ve got to get moving,” John said, stepping around Sherlock and ushering Rosie into the bathroom.

Hm.  That was… perplexing.  Sherlock normally liked when things were perplexing, but at the moment - well.  He wasn’t used to puzzling out this sort of thing, wasn’t accustomed to being so out of his depth.  There was a reason, a very good reason, really, that he’d told John all those years ago that he was married to the work. 

Sherlock couldn’t remember it, quite at the moment, but he was sure, absolutely certain, that it would come to him.

-

“Rosie, that’s where your arm goes.”

“S’not,” Rosie said, her voice muffled in her nightshirt.

“Let’s discuss the evidence, shall we?” John said.  “Shirts have two holes for arms and one for heads.  You’re stuck in a small one and there’s a big one right there next to you.  What conclusions can we draw?”

“None,” Rosie said grumpily.

“All right, I suppose we’ll see,” John said.  “Sherlock, would you like to weigh in?”

“This seems like something for the two of you to work out,” Sherlock said, not looking up from his laptop.

John sighed.  “Thank you for all of your help.”

“Anytime,” Sherlock said.  

On the table next to his chair, John’s phone buzzed; John gave up on Rosie’s nightshirt for the moment and went to pick it up.  “Lestrade says hello.”

“What’s he texting _you_  for?” 

“Because mates text each other.”

“He never texts _me_  unless there’s a B-O-D-Y,” Sherlock said.

“Body!” Rosie said triumphantly.

“You’re not supposed to be able to spell yet,” John admonished.  “And maybe he never texts you because you always ignore him unless it’s for a case.”

“I’m stuck!” Rosie said from inside her nightgown.

“If this is just a ploy to get out of going to bed, it’s not going to work,” Sherlock said.  “Even your father wouldn’t fall for that.”

“What’s a ploy?” Rosie said.

“A trick,” Sherlock said.  “A plot.  A tactic.  Basically I’m asking if you’re only _pretending_  to be stuck in your nightgown to stay up past bedtime.”

Rosie seemed to consider this.  “I don’t _think_  it’s a trick,” she said finally.

“That’s a relief,” Sherlock said, taking advantage of her distraction to grab her by the shoulders, twist the nightshirt around, and yank it down over her head.  “Because _mine_  was.”

“That wasn’t fair!” Rosie said, putting her hands on her hips.

“Welcome to life,” Sherlock said, scooping her up and carrying her up the stairs.  “Best you learn early.”  

After Rosie had been tucked into the single bed in the corner of the top floor room and had promised not to come down to use the toilet more than once, Sherlock returned to the living room to find John pulling on a coat.

“You’re going somewhere?” Sherlock said.

“Incredible.  How _do_  you do it?” John said, grabbing his keys.  “Yeah, Lestrade’s just packed it in for the week and we’re meeting at a pub down the way.  You don’t mind staying home?  I just assumed - ”

“Not at all,” Sherlock said.  “I’ve got an experiment to start with all that horseshoe crab blood in the freezer.”

“I was starting to wonder what that was for,” John said.  “Right, then, call me if anything comes up.”

“Of course,” Sherlock said, hovering in the doorway.  

John looked at him, then past him, then at him again.

“Oh,” Sherlock said, sliding out of the way.

“Right,” John said.  He smiled a bit awkwardly, then edged around Sherlock and jogged out of 221B.

“Right,” Sherlock said to the empty flat.

-

Sherlock wasn’t waiting up for him.

No, Sherlock was simply awake, like he usually was, deep into a research paper about the impact of DNA-corrupting poisons on the accuracy of autopsies in which he’d already found two rather dramatic methodological flaws, embarrassing for the _BMJ_ , really, when John arrived home.

“Evening,” John said from the doorway.

As Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, everything fell sharply into place.

It was late, more than two and a half hours after most of the pubs in the area closed; there was a missed button on his shirt and his shoes were freshly re-tied, and he brought with him just the slightest scent of… lilac.

Sherlock’s stomach turned over.  “You pulled.”

John blew out a breath.  “Can’t get anything past you, can I?  Rosie go to sleep all right?”

“Of course,” Sherlock said.  

“Sherlock, look,” John said, “I - ”

“No need to explain,” Sherlock said.  “It’s completely understood.”

“It’s just - it was a bit of a mistake, really, because I didn’t ever mean for you to think - I think we should just go back to normal, you know?  Because I’m not - ”

“No one ever said you were,” Sherlock said, turning back to his laptop.  “Sleep well.”

John stood in the doorway for a moment, and then turned and left.  

Sherlock finished the article in front of him and then turned to the next, settling into his chair for a very, very long night.

-

Normal.  Sherlock could do normal _._   He’d done normal before, for a given value of normal.  He’d done normal with John for a decade.  Going back to it would be simple.  

It was the last few days that hadn’t been normal, really.  A failed experiment; the fulfilling of a requirement on a temporary basis.  What had happened had been a mistake, just something John needed in the moment - _needed_ , past tense, Sherlock reminded himself - then that was fine.  

If it was something Sherlock had never thought _he_  needed and now - well, that was very much his own problem.

“Sherlock?” Rosie said.  “Are you all right?”  

She put her hand on her arm and looked at him seriously, her eyes sharp and searching. 

“Of course,” Sherlock said.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You looked… I dunno,” Rosie said.  “Not good.”

One day soon, Sherlock thought, her observational skills would become highly inconvenient.  “I’m perfectly fine,” Sherlock said, pulling her into his lap.  “Shall we watch some crap telly until Daddy wakes up?”

“Yes!” Rosie said, grabbing the remote and settling in.

There was a very good reason for going back to normal, after all, Sherlock thought as Rosie tucked her head under his chin.  A very good reason indeed.

-

“Can I have some water?”

Sherlock pulled away from the microscope and blinked.  He wasn’t sure how many days had gone by since he’d caught the scent of lilac perfume, but he was fairly certain by Rosie’s droopy eyelids and her bright pink nightgown that it was, at the very least, nighttime.  “Again?”

Rosie held up her cup.  “”S empty.”

“All right, but this is the last one,” Sherlock said, taking the plastic cup and turning on the tap.  “You’ll be up again to use the loo in an hour, you know.”

“I know,” Rosie said.  “Will you still be up?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m an adult and I don’t sleep as much as you do.”

“Daddy’s sleeping right now,” Rosie pointed out.

“I don’t sleep as much as _anybody_ ,” Sherlock acknowledged, handing her the filled cup.

“Because of the Work,” Rosie said.

Sherlock almost smiled at the implied upper case letter in her voice.  “Precisely.  Back to bed?”

Rosie held out her hand.  “Will you take me?”

“One day,” Sherlock said, sighing and letting her pull him up the stairs, “I’ll stop being such a pushover.”

“Maybe,” Rosie singsonged.  “Shh, don’t wake Daddy.” 

Sherlock made a point not to look at John, buried under the covers on his side of the room.  “There you go.  Back to sleep now, all right?”

“All right,” Rosie whispered.

Across the room, John twisted under the sheets.  “Mmmmf,” he murmured.

“Good night,” Sherlock said, pulling Rosie’s blanket up to her chin and tiptoeing out of the room.  He watched from the doorway as she settled down, listened as her breathing went deep and slow.  He was just about to back out of the room when - 

“No,” John said harshly, like it was being wrenched from his throat.  “No, _no._ ”

Sherlock pressed his lips together.  He should leave right now, shut the door behind him; John wouldn’t like him listening in on a nightmare.

“No,” John whispered again, the sound agonized.  “No, please - _Sherlock_  - ”

Sherlock was on his knees next to the bed before he’d fully processed the word, one hand gripping John’s shoulder, shaking him firmly.  “John,” he whispered.  “Wake up.  John!”

“ _No_ ,” John gasped, his eyes opening wide, the breath catching in his chest.  

“It’s all right,” Sherlock said quietly, leaning in closer.  “You’re all right.”

John’s chest heaved, his eyes wild as he walked the tightrope between wake and sleep.  “Sherlock?” he said, one of his hands groping out of the sheets and tangling itself in Sherlock’s shirt.

“Yes,” Sherlock said.  “You were having a nightmare.”

“Oh, god,” John said, slumping down. 

“Indeed,” Sherlock murmured.  He realized that he was rubbing John’s back gently, like he sometimes did when Rosie fell asleep with her head in his lap.  “You’re all right.”

John sucked in a deep breath.  He pulled on the front of Sherlock’s shirt, drawing Sherlock closer.  Sherlock pressed his forehead to John’s, feeling the sweat cooling on his brow.  Normal: this could still be back to normal, he’d woken John from nightmares before, this was _normal_  - 

“Sherlock,” John said, the word little more than a puff of air, and Sherlock felt lips, paper dry, against his.  

“Yes?” Sherlock said into his mouth, and John froze.  

The blanket went flying; John jumped to his feet and grabbed Sherlock’s sleeve, then dragged him out of the bedroom and down the stairs, his hair a mess and his faded shirt wrinkled, and Sherlock followed him, not that he had much choice.

“John,” Sherlock said, but John didn’t reply; he threw open the door to Sherlock’s bedroom, yanked Sherlock inside, and then shoved him, hard, onto the bed.  Sherlook’s mouth went dry as he took in John’s blazing eyes, the set of his jaw.  “What - ”

“Shut up,” John said, pinning Sherlock to the bed and covering Sherlock’s mouth with his.  

It wasn’t so much a kiss as an inhalation: possessive and desperate and _angry_ , Sherlock thought, barely restrained rage in every swipe of John’s tongue.  It reminded Sherlock of nothing so much as lying on the floor of the mortuary as John’s punches rained down on him; then as now, he wanted more, and more, and more.

“In my dream,” John gasped against his lips, “you were - you were - _fuck_  - ”

“I know,” Sherlock said; he could imagine, at the very least.  “I know - ”

John cut him off with a sharp bite to his lower lip, then slid a hand in between them and cupped Sherlock through his trousers, and Sherlock’s back arched without his permission.  It was like pulling a loose thread in a sweater, and soon Sherlock was coming undone in his hands.  John swallowed the moan he dragged from Sherlock’s throat, and Sherlock listened, his mind curiously blank, as John finished himself off, his hips making desperate little thrusts against Sherlock’s thigh, warmth spilling over Sherlock’s stomach where the shirt had rucked up.

When it was over, John pressed his forehead to Sherlock’s.

“I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing,” he said.

Sherlock blinked.  “Nor do I.”

There was a pause, and then - as if John had only just realized where he was - he withdrew, his whole body going stiff and distant.  Sherlock fisted his hands in the sheets as John levered himself off of Sherlock and backed away from the bed.

“John,” Sherlock said quietly, but John just shook his head and made his way out of the room by the weak light bleeding in through the window.  Sherlock heard the door to the bathroom shut and the tap turn on.

He wanted to follow John, lean his head against the the door, burst in and ask him about the woman with the lilac perfume, kiss him until he said something, _anything -_ but instead he laid in bed, sticky and sweaty, and listened until he heard the tap go quiet, heard John climb the stairs, heard the nearly-silent squeak of his bedframe through the floorboards.  

And in the morning, he listened as John came down for tea and got Rosie ready to go to the nursery; he didn’t even flinch when John called out, “We’re off, Sherlock!” and Rosie followed up with, “Stop being such a sleepyhead!” and their voices and footsteps echoed down the stairs and out the front door.

It wasn’t until the very last echoes of their voices faded away that he rescued his phone from the kitchen table and sent a text:

_5 pm.  You know where to meet me. - SH_

And the text came back almost immediately: _See you there._

__

-

“Shezza!”  Billy Wiggins plopped down next to Sherlock on the park bench.  “Haven’t heard from you in a while, mate.  Not since your house exploded, wannit?”

“I believe so,” Sherlock said.  

“Shame, that,” Billy said.  “Lot of work up in smoke.  So, you need my detectiving expertise, do you?  There’s a bloke selling down in Southwark who I think could be a serial killer, if you’re looking for one, though he could just be a bit dodgy, I suppose - ”

“Not that,” Sherlock said.  “The other.”

“The other?” Billy said blankly.  “What do you - oh.  Really?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said.  “Really.”

“Huh,” Billy said.  “Fancy that.  All right, then.”  He reached into his dirty backpack and dug around.  “It’s funny, you know, I never thought I’d need it, but - here you go.”

He held out a tightly folded piece of paper.

Sherlock frowned at it.  “I assumed you’d forgotten.”

Billy shrugged.  “You gave me a thousand quid, mate.”

The paper was cheap, cleanly torn out of a notebook, its creases crisp and undisturbed; it hadn’t ever been opened.  He unfolded it and stared at the words written inside.  The man who’d written it had pressed firmly on each word: he’d wanted the reader to know that he meant them.

“ _You’ll lose them_ ,” Billy read over his shoulder.  “What’s it mean?  I always thought it would be real deep and meaningful, you know, sumfin about that big brain of yours and what all, or those 12 steps.  Who’s _them_ , anyway?”

“No one,” Sherlock said, slipping the paper into his pocket.  “So you won’t sell to me.”

Billy shrugged.  “I mean, I will, if you want.  Weren’t the note supposed to stop you, though?”

“Nevermind,” Sherlock said.  “Goodbye, Billy.”

“Bye, then,” Billy said.  “Oh, wait - last time, you said you’d pay me 500 more for keeping it for you, remember?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

-

 _Got any cases?_  Sherlock texted Lestrade.

 _No,_  Lestrade texted back.   _All boring_.

 _I don’t mind boring,_  Sherlock wrote back right away.

 _I’m sorry, is this Sherlock Holmes I’m talking to?_  Lestrade replied.   _Are you feeling feverish?  Have you fallen and hit your head?_

 _Bugger off,_  Sherlock replied.  

Well, that was another distraction crossed off the list.  Perhaps he could find one of those underground bare-knuckle fighting joints he’d been to long ago?  He was a bit older than he used to be, of course, but still, twenty years ago he’d won more often than not.

His phone buzzed; it was John.   _Where are you_?

Sherlock looked around.  He wasn’t anywhere interesting.   _Out_ , he wrote back.

 _Clearly_ , John texted.   _Is there a case on?_

A drop of water splashed his phone’s screen, then another; it had begun to rain.  

 _No,_  Sherlock sent.

 _Right_ , John said.   _Home for dinner?_

Sherlock turned up the collar of his coat against the wind, which suddenly felt biting even though he’d been out for hours.  Across the road, a pub was filling up with people out to celebrate the end of the week.  The rain was picking up, and the warm glow from the dirty windows was starting to look appealing. 

More appealing, at least, than going back to 221B.

 _No_ ,Sherlock wrote back.  He dropped his phone into his pocket and went into the pub.  It was rundown and smelt of stale beer, and one of the lights over the bar had burnt out at least a year earlier.  Nobody looked up when he sat down and deposited his coat on the barstool next to him.  It was dead depressing.  

The bartender glanced at Sherlock.  “Yeah?”

“A shot of whatever you’ve got that’s strongest,” he said.  “Two, actually.”

The bartender didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

-

“Oi, aren’t you Sherlock Holmes?”

Sherlock swung around to look at the man.  “Aren’t _you_  recently unemployed?”

The man opened his mouth, then frowned.  “How d’you know that?”

“Because I’m Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock said, swirling his most recent glass.  

“Cor!” the man said.  “Shane, you’re right!  It’s him!  Do another, yeah?  Shane, c’mere, he’s gonna do another.”

“I’m really not,” Sherlock said.

“Come on, mate,” the man called Shane said, hooking an arm around Sherlock’s neck.  “Go on, what about me?”

“Do our Shane here and we’ll buy you another drink,” the first man said.

Sherlock glanced at the one in his hand.  The ice had hardly had time to melt; he threw the rest of it back anyway, then arched an eyebrow at the man next to him.  

“You had fish and chips for lunch,” Sherlock said.

“That’s boring,” Shane said.  “I’m not paying for that.”

“Did I say I was finished?” Sherlock said.  “You had fish and chips for lunch, and then you went back to your job as a window cleaner in the City.  You bummed a cigarette off a colleague even though you’re not a regular smoker.”

Shane looked impressed.  “How d’you - ”

“You skived off work early and asked the same colleague to cover for you,” Sherlock continued.  “And then you went home and slept with someone else’s wife.”

The bar went very, very quiet.  Shane’s mouth was hanging open; his friend was looking at Sherlock with a furrowed brow.

“Hang on,” the friend said.  “What’d you just say?”

“Oh,” Sherlock said.  “And it was _his_.  Might I have that drink now?”

-

“You’ve made bail, mate.”

Sherlock looked up.  “I told them I didn’t want my call.”

The PC shrugged and unlocked the door.  “Somebody’s come for you.” 

Sherlock followed the PC down the cold hall.  His back ached: there would be a bruise from the sharp corner of the bar, one to match the dark purple flowering beneath his eye.  He massaged his sore jaw and decided that if it was Mycroft standing there holding his umbrella, he’d hit another copper just so they’d throw him back in jail.  Surely you couldn’t assault a police officer twice in one night and be let out on bail, even the Met had to have _some_  pride in - 

“Oh,” he said, rounding the corner.  “You look awful.”

“ _I_ look - it’s half four in the morning, Sherlock,” John snapped.  “Of course I look awful.  I was _asleep_.  You look a mess yourself, for the record.”

“I told them not to call anyone,” Sherlock said, slipping his phone and wallet into his pocket and lifting his coat between two fingers.  It smelled of beer and dried blood; he’d have to have it dry cleaned.  

“Well, it turns out we know a few people around here,” John said, slamming his pen down on the table with probably a bit more force than was necessary and pushing a pile of paperwork across the desk to the on-duty officer.  “Lestrade thought you might want to get out of here before the papers get word that Sherlock Holmes spent the night in lockup for assaulting a police officer.  Which, what the _hell_  were you - no,” John said, breathing in deeply through his nose; apparently all those years of therapy _had_  taught him something.  “No, not doing this here.  Do you have your things?  We’re going.”

John turned on his heel and stomped - he really was stomping, it was rather juvenile - out of the police station.  Sherlock trailed behind at a polite distance, pulling his last cigarette out of his back pocket.

“Can hardly get a cab at this time of - Jesus, are you smoking?” John said.

Sherlock sucked in a deep breath of sweet, sweet nicotine.  Delightful.  “I traded for them in jail.”   

“What did you trade for?  No, nevermind, I don’t want to know,” John said.  “What’s gotten into you?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.  “Nothing at all,” he said.

John smiled tightly and lifted his hand for a cab.  “I should have left you in there.  No - I should have called Mycroft, made _him_  bail you out.  A _pub brawl_?  What were you even _doing_  at a pub?  And Christ, you punched a police officer!  You do know that’s illegal when you’re not on a case, don’t you?”

“I thought you said we weren’t doing this here,” Sherlock said, flicking his ash, the cigarette warm between his fingers.  Pity that it was the last one.

“I said we weren’t doing it in _there_.  Out here on the street while you finish your bloody cigarette is a different story,” John said.  “Lestrade can’t just look the other way on this one, you realize.  What did you do, deduce the whole pub?”

“Not quite the _whole_  pub,” Sherlock said.  He sucked in the last of the smoke and dropped it on the ground, grinding it beneath his toe.  “All right, I’m ready.”  
  
“Oh, _now_ he’s ready,” John muttered, waving at an approaching cab.  He opened the door and gestured Sherlock in.  Sherlock decided not to comment the fact that his sweater was on inside-out.  And John said he didn’t have any manners.

The ride back to Baker Street was quiet.  London passed, calm as it ever was in the pre-dawn dark.  John glared out his window the entire ride home, his stiff shoulders radiating fury and annoyance and possibly just a bit of concern, and Sherlock texted Lestrade the word _Arsehole_ 17 times just to pass the time.

The light was on at Mrs. Hudson’s when they arrived home.  John shut the door quietly behind them, but Mrs. Hudson’s opened anyway, her dressing gown pulled tightly around her.  

“Sherlock, what’s gotten into you?” she said, cupping Sherlock’s jaw and turning it side to side to examine his black eye.  “This looks painful, though I imagine you deserved it.” 

“I did,” Sherlock said, repressing the urge to smile.  

“She’s still fast asleep, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said to John.  “Not a peep.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” John said.  “Sherlock owes you.”

“Never you mind it, boys,” she called as they climbed the steps.

At the top of the stairs, Sherlock dropped his dirtied coat over the arm of the sofa, stretched out on the sofa and considered falling asleep.

“My nose is bleeding,” he called out.

“Too bad,” John said, but when he came back from the kitchen he was carrying a wet rag and a cold compress which he dropped in Sherlock’s lap unceremoniously.  

“I’ll have a cup of tea, too, since you’re making it,” Sherlock said.

“What the _hell_  were you thinking?” John said.  

Sherlock dabbed at his nose.  “Not very much at all, to be entirely honest.”

“Because here’s the thing,” John said.  His voice was low and steady, a sure sign that he was furious.  “If you were anyone else, I’d think you went out and picked a fight.  I’d think you went out and got drunk because you were - you were - I don’t know, because you were _upset_ , but you don’t _get_  upset, so I’m starting to think you did this just to be an utter _prat_ , because as you’d say, when the impossible has been eliminated - ”

“Let me get this straight,” Sherlock said.  “You’re allowed your own little nighttime activities but I’m not?”

John gaped at him.  “What is _that_  supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock said, the words toppling from his tongue before he could stop them.  “I just find it _interesting_  that it’s a problem when I go out and have a drink, but not when you do the same and go home with a slag.” 

“Come off it,” John said, the color draining from his face.  “It’s not like that.”

“It’s not like _what_?” Sherlock snarled.

“You’ve never - we’re not - ” John cut himself off.

“No,” Sherlock said after a moment.   “No, I suppose we’re not.”

John looked away.

The kettle whistled.  John escaped to the kitchen, and Sherlock held the compress to his cheek.  Everything was spinning again.  He was quite sure he’d regret this entire conversation in the morning.  

Sherlock was just on the edge of sleep when a clatter told him that there was a teacup on the coffee table.  He opened his eyes to see John, in his chair, his own mug clenched in his hands.

Sherlock lifted the tea to his lips and took a sip.  Across the room, John took his own, and they sat in silence as the sun came up.

-

At some point John sent Sherlock to bed -  “I don’t want her to see you like this,” John said, nodding toward the stairs, “I’ll tell her it was a case, all right?” - and Sherlock fell into a fitful sleep, the hangover kicking in just as his head hit the pillow.  He rolled over, punching his pillow and finding new sore spots - damn, he really couldn’t take a beating as well as he used to - and willing away his headache.  

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he woke, John was watching him from the doorway, a glass of water in hand.

Sherlock blinked.  “John?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s all right.”

John set the water down on the bedside table and perched on the edge of the bed.  “Aspirin,” he said, holding out his hand.  “For the - well, all of it.”

Sherlock sat up and swallowed the pills dry.  “Thank you,” he said quietly.  “For - ”

“No need,” John said.  Sherlock wanted to kiss him.  He imagined that it would be like how the first punch had felt last night, when Sherlock had been drunk and asking for it: he knew it would hurt later, but at the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care.  

John stood up.  “Right, then.  Get some sleep, yeah?”

“John,” Sherlock said, but John just looked away, pulling the door shut behind him, and Sherlock laid back down and shut his eyes tight to block out the light filtering in through the curtains.

-

“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” Mycroft said, leaning back in his chair and smirking.  “Come to explain why I just had to get a charge of assaulting a police officer thrown out, have you?”

“What?  Oh, that,” Sherlock said.  “No.  I’ll take the assignment.”

“Not even so much as a thank you?” Mycroft said.  

“The Edible Arrangement is on its way,” Sherlock said.  “Send me out of the country.  A month at least, you said?”

Mycroft tilted his head, taking in, presumably, everything; Sherlock just stared back, daring him to say a word.

“Oh, Sherlock,” Mycroft said quietly.  There was something in his voice that verged on sympathy, and that, somehow, was very nearly worse than all the rest of it put together.  “Are you certain?”

“Let’s not pretend we’re going to have this conversation,” Sherlock said.

“Very well,” Mycroft said.  “You’ll leave tonight from Gatwick.”

“Good,” Sherlock said.  “Send me the details.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft began.

But Sherlock was already into the antechamber, his fingers flying over his phone - _Leaving the country for a few weeks.  Work.  Unavoidable.  Don’t try to contact me_. - _SH_

He picked up the bag he’d left by the door, dropped his phone in the bin, and left without looking back.

\- 

Three weeks in he received a note, handed to him by a busboy in a cafe in Kuala Lumpur and written in German:

 _He’s worried about you_.

Sherlock crumpled it up, shoved it in his pocket, and went back to his coffee.

-

A week after that, he woke with a start on a train headed to Naples to find a perfectly wrapped Cadbury Egg on the tray table in front of him.  

He opened it up, sniffed it, and took a small bite.  Inside was a strip of paper you might find in a fortune cookie.  Typed on it in blocky letters was:

_He’s being frantic and annoying.  Contact recommended._

Sherlock frowned, ripped the paper up into shreds, and finished the egg as the Italian countryside raced by.

-

Sherlock was gingerly cleaning his knuckles in the dirty sink of the bedsit outside Moscow three weeks after that when an envelope slid under the door.  He sighed, watching the blood run down the drain, and dried his hands on his shirt (it was a lost cause, anyway) before opening the envelope.  Inside, the latest note read, in an unbreakable code that Mycroft had invented when he was fourteen and which had never, as far as Sherlock knew, been broken by anyone but him:

_He’s threatening to call Mummy.  Believe you’ve made a miscalculation as to his status.  Please address ASAP._

__

Sherlock sat down on the thin mattress in the corner and considered his options.  On the one hand, he didn’t exactly have the utmost confidence in Mycroft’s interpretation of the situation.  As vexingly piercing as his glance had been in his office that day, Mycroft was even less well-versed in the vernacular of personal relationships than Sherlock was, and he was absolutely nowhere close to being an expert on John Watson. 

On the other hand, Sherlock had been trailing his target for three days and, if he was honest, had only been putting off capture because he didn’t have anything better to do.  Plus, his bag was getting heavy with trinkets he’d picked up for Rosie and soon he’d have to do away with another pair of socks to make space, so.

Sherlock sighed and picked up his phone.  

_Target acquisition imminent.  Extraction at 0700.  Send socks._

-

Mycroft was waiting for him at the airport, just to be obnoxious, presumably.

“Are you my chauffeur?” Sherlock asked as he climbed down the steps of the private jet.  

“Dream on, little brother,” Mycroft said.  “We’re debriefing in the car.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow as he threw his bag into the trunk of the waiting black Benz.  “Not at your office?”

“And risk the wrath of the good doctor?” Mycroft said.  He held out his phone, and Sherlock scrolled through several pages worth of increasingly profane texts.  “I believe I’ve suffered enough on account of your little lovers’ spat.”

“I will jump out of the car if you use that word in my presence again,” Sherlock said.

There was a long silence.

“ _Don’t_  say anything,” Sherlock said, just as Mycroft opened his mouth.

Mycroft sighed.

-

221B smelled like cheese toasties.

The telly was on, and it masked Sherlock’s footsteps so that he made it all the way up the stairs and to the door of the kitchen without anyone noticing him.  Rosie was sitting at the table with her back to him, her hair hanging down her back in strands still dripping from the bath, one hand holding a toastie halfway to her mouth as she stared at the cartoon on the telly; John was at the stove, a spatula in hand, his back hunched.

“Hello,” Sherlock said.

They both spun round.  John dropped the spatula.

“Sherlock!” Rosie yelled, vaulting off the chair and throwing herself at him.  Sherlock caught her under the arms and lifted her up, and she locked her arms and legs around him tightly.  “You’re home!  Did you get the bad guy?  Did you figure out the case?  Daddy said it was a hard one and that’s why you were gone so long.”

“It was,” Sherlock said.  “A very hard one.”

“I missed you,” Rosie said, burrowing her head in his shoulder.

Sherlock locked eyes with John over Rosie’s shoulder.  “I missed you too,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head and smelling her sweet scent, shampoo and apple juice and the magic markers on her fingers.  

Rosie pulled back and grinned.  “Did you bring me presents?”

“Of course I did,” Sherlock said.  “A doll from the Philippines, and some chocolate from Belgium, and a nice new hat from Moscow that a very reputable salesman told me was the highest quality faux fur in all of Russia.”

“What’s fo fur?” Rosie said, furrowing her brow.

“It means fake, sweetheart, let him set his bag down, at least,” John said, scooping up his spatula and turning back to the stove.  “Toastie?”

“Please,” Sherlock said, settling Rosie in her chair and sitting down at the one nearest her.  “So what do you want to see first?”

-

“And then the very bad man decided to come with me and be done with it,” Sherlock finished.

“That didn’t sound so hard!” Rosie said.  “Why did it take you so long?”

 _Well, when you add in the bribing of several Cambodian government officials, the trail of bodies through Athens, and the three days I spent trapped in an defunct Soviet torture chamber_ , _it certainly pads the timeline,_  Sherlock thought to himself.  What he _said_  was: “There was a lot of time spent waiting for the train.”

“Oh, of course,” Rosie said wisely.  “Trains take _forever_.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock said.

“Daddy was worried when you were gone,” she said, settling back in bed and blinking sleepily.  “He said he wasn’t but I knew he was.”

Sherlock filed that away.  “Well, I’m back now, aren’t I.”

“You don’t have to go away again soon, do you?” 

Sherlock tucked in the blanket around her.  “No,” he said.  “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Rosie said, and Sherlock turned off the light.

John was waiting when Sherlock went back downstairs.  There was a full cup of tea sitting on the table beside him.  He’d made it and forgotten to drink it; he was angry.

“She missed you,” he said, not even looking over his shoulder.

“I know,” Sherlock said.  

“She asked about you.  Every day.  Every night before she went to sleep.”

Sherlock straightened up.  “I’m sorry.  In the future, I’ll endeavor not to - ”

“ _Don’t,”_ John snapped.  “Just - please, spare me.  You couldn’t have rung?  Sent a message, somehow, to let me - let us know you were _alive_?

“It didn’t seem necessary,” Sherlock said.  “And since even someone with your limited observational skills can see I _am_  alive, there’s no reason to - ”

John stood up and whirled on him.  “I _begged_  Mycroft for information,” he hissed.  “And you know what he told me?  He told me it was _none of my concern_.  Like I was - like I was _no one_.”  He pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath.  “Have I driven you away that much, then?  Is that it?”

Sherlock stared at him.  “What do you mean?”

“Because if I could undo all of it, every last bit of it, I would,” John said.  “I really would, you know that, don’t you?”

“Ah, yes, of course, because of how you’re _not gay_ ,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes.  “Don’t worry, you proved that quite capably by going out and sleeping with that cheap perfume you picked up at Lestrade’s local.”

“I never - that’s _not_  what - you think _that’s_  why I slept with her?”  John laughed, the harsh sort of sound that Sherlock onky ever heard when he was angry.  “Bit hard for me to say I’m not gay when I - well.   _You_  know.”

“I do,” Sherlock said coldly.  “Intimately.”

“Jesus,” John said.  “I thought I was - I was trying to prove that I wasn’t - that I wasn’t _asking_  anything of you.”

“Who _exactly_  were you trying to prove that to?” Sherlock said.  


“You!” John said.  “Or - me, I suppose.  Both of us.”  He clenched a fist.  “I’ve never, before - and it’s _you_  - it’s not easy, you know.  Realizing you want your best mate to be - well, more than that.”  
  
“I can imagine,” Sherlock said.

John blinked.  He looked like he’d just been punched, or perhaps kissed.  “Why did you go away?” 

“I suppose,” Sherlock said, feeling a bit stupid, “I was trying to prove that I wasn’t asking anything of _you_.”

John stared at him.  “But you - you never said.”

“What did I never say?”

“ _Anything_ ,” John said.  “You’re the one who can read minds, Sherlock, not me. You never said - what you wanted, or what you were thinking, or - anything, really.”

“You never asked,” Sherlock said.

The silence spread out between them.  Somewhere down the road, a siren blared.

“Christ,” John said finally.  “I didn’t, did I.”

It wasn’t the type of question that required an answer, so Sherlock didn’t give one.

“I - I didn’t know how to, to ask, or to say - well, it’s _you_ ,” John said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I was certain I had been embarrassingly obvious.”

“You surprise me more often than you realize,” Sherlock said.  “When you said, before, that you wanted things to go back to normal - ”

“I was - Jesus, I was _frightened_ , Sherlock,” John said.  “I thought - I have no idea what I thought, really.  I had no idea what _you_  thought, either, so that didn’t help, but mostly I thought I’d mess things up.  Or that you would, no offense - ”

“None taken, the odds of me successfully executing a sexual or romantic relationship are functionally zero,” Sherlock said.

“ - and I can’t - I can’t _lose_  you,” John said.  He shut his eyes like he was in pain and didn’t want Sherlock to see.  “I can’t.  Not again.”

 _Oh_ , Sherlock thought.  

John opened his eyes.  “So I thought maybe it would be - safer.  To go back to how it was before.”

“When have either of us ever preferred _safer_?” Sherlock said.

John huffed out a laugh.  “That,” he said, “is a very good point.”

They stared at each other.  Sherlock wasn’t entirely certain if they’d come to an agreement; they didn’t seem to be fighting, precisely, but it was all rather opaque to him, really - 

“Can I kiss you?” John said.  “Right now, I mean.”

“Yes, I was hoping you might,” Sherlock said.  

John was crossing the room before Sherlock could reconsider the wisdom of his answer, cupping Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissing him, hard, and Sherlock could tell John was trying to say a great many things in the kiss but he couldn’t quite hear all of them, so he just kissed John back and decided he’d have to ask about it later.

“Does this mean we’ve wrapped up the talking part?” Sherlock said when John pulled back to catch his breath.

“No,” John said.  “That part doesn’t just stop happening, sorry.  We’ve rather bollocksed it up so far, so, yeah, sorry, there’s more to come.”

“All right, then,” Sherlock said, and kissed him again. 

-

“Daddy?”

Sherlock opened one eye, his mind rewinding through the previous hours.  They had moved into Sherlock’s bedroom - the talking part was apparently done for the night, at least, much to Sherlock’s relief - and John had disentangled himself from Sherlock eventually, once they’d both caught their breaths, and Sherlock had surprised both of them by saying, very quietly, “Stay?” 

John stared at him.  “I - god, you’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted you to say that, exactly that, every - but - ”

“We’ll leave the door open for her,” Sherlock said.  “And I’ll help you find your pants.”

“Oh, very generous,” John said, sliding out of bed, “considering you’re the one who insisted on _throwing_ them - ”

A quiet search in the darkness ensued, ending in helpless, stifled giggles when the pants in question were found draped over the skull (which made its home in Sherlock’s bedroom these days, because one of Rosie’s little friends had seen it on the mantel and cried so much that Rosie had asked never to invite the poor child over again), and they both pulled on clothes and crawled back into bed, laughter still on their lips as they stared at each other.

“Are you a sleep cuddler?” John said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Sherlock said.

“Well, we’ll have to find out,” John said, and slid an arm around his waist and settled in for the night.

And now it was morning, judging by the light coming in through the window and the fact that half a second ago Rosie had stuck her head in through the open door.  Sherlock slid his head off John’s shoulder; how had it ended up there, anyway?  It hardly seemed a comfortable place to sleep.  It was certainly something that would require additional data.

“Wha?” John said, startling awake.

“There you are,” Rosie said.  “Did you fall asleep here, Daddy?”

“Yes,” John said, because it would have been a difficult thing to dispute.  “I did.  Er - listen, Rosie - ”

But the dip on Sherlock’s side of the bed indicated that Rosie was, apparently, unperturbed to find the two adults she lived with suddenly sharing a bed when they never had done before.  Children were so delightfully adaptable.  “Space for me?” she said, poking Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Naturally,” Sherlock said, holding the blanket up for her.

Rosie squeezed in between them and pulled the blanket all the way up to her chin.  “Better,” she said.

“Yes,” John said.  He reached until his arm was draped over Rosie and Sherlock both, and smiled over Rosie’s head, a sleepy smile that Sherlock couldn’t help but return.  “Much.”


End file.
